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Uc merced or uc davis!?

Okay I do not know where to go, my options are uc merced or uc davis. I know what you guys must be thinking, UC Davis is a way better school than UC Merced, but the thing is that if i go to Merced then I would not have to take out any loans, and if I went to Davis i would have a big loan on my head. If i went to uc merced I would be staying with my parents since I live in merced, also I would be able to take classes at the CC while going to the uc, so i can finish quicker. A minor problem with uc merced is that they do not have my major, and was wondering if i would be able to transfer to another UC that had my major after I complete my lower division classes.

Replies to: Uc merced or uc davis!?

Merced doesn't even have your major. So, going to Merced and transferring to another UC will be just too much hassle and waste of money. Either start and finish at Davis or attend CC and go to UC or CSU's. Between Davis and Merced, the difference is just too big.

Why are you hesitating to take loans unless its a really high amount ? Is it less than 40k ?

You have a problem in that there are no schools in California that offer a petroleum engineering major. Here are your choices for that major:

Colorado School of Mines
Louisiana State University and A&M College
Marietta College
Missouri University of Science and Technology (Formerly University of Missouri-Rolla)
Montana Tech of the University of Montana (Formerly Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology)
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Pennsylvania State University
Texas A&M University
Texas Tech University
The University of Kansas (Formerly University of Kansas)
The University of Tulsa (Formerly University of Tulsa)
University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Louisiana at Lafayette (Formerly University of Southwestern Louisiana)
University of Oklahoma
University of Texas at Austin
University of Wyoming
West Virginia University

Some of the above are not that expensive at list price even for out-of-state students, although financial aid may not be available for out-of-state students.

On the other hand, you can prepare for actuarial jobs and career with a major in applied math or statistics, with appropriate elective choices. Applied math and statistics should be reasonably common majors. The only California public schools with specific actuarial science majors are:

More information on preparing for actuarial careers can be found at Be an Actuary . It does appear that the directory of approved Validation by Educational Experience (VEE) courses has listings for UC Davis but not UC Merced.

Since it looks like UC Davis is too expensive, your choices come down to:

* Attend UC Merced and/or community college and plan to transfer as a junior to a school with the petroleum engineering major or actuarial VEE courses to take with an appropriate major (e.g. math, statistics, or actuarial science).
* See if any of the schools with petroleum engineering have a late application deadline and low enough costs.
* Not attend college at all this coming year, and reapply to a new list of schools that have your majors and low enough costs.

oh I think I misread it then, cause I got it off of **************.
Well I already SIR'd to UC Merced and I think I will just switch my major from undeclared engineering to applied mathematics, so that I can become an actuary.
Also, is it true that it isn't that hard to transfer within the UC system? because that is what a staff member at UC Merced said.

Btw, Montana Tech, New Mexico Tech, South Dakota School of Mines, and other lower cost Western schools with geological engineering and/or petroleum engineering give WUE rates to transfers.

Also UCBalumnus, there are plenty of schools which offer a concentration in petroleum engineering within their ABET accredited Chem E departments that you didn't list. University of Southern California is one, and University of North Dakota has a full fledged major. It might not be ABET accredited, but considering it's the only program in a state whose recent economic prosperity is, at least in part, tied with shale oil, I doubt it matters.

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